Saturday, January 11, 2014

One of the things I remember from my childhood is the annual handing out of the Valentines. Nowadays I think it's all or nothing, but back then, you could snub a kid. Don't worry, there are plenty worse ways to bully nowadays.

The tradition still seems to be around, despite the likelihood that many kids are sending each other virtual "be mine" messages. And of course like with all kids' stuff, it's not hard to note the defining of gender images through the cards targeted to boys and girls. There are no boys on the mermaids and fairy packages, and only one token girl image on the train and superhero assortments.

What was meant to be a "we have an assortment of valentines" almost detoured into a post-graduate thesis, but I'm going to leave this topic and note that while I was receiving the Valentine scratch-off jokes that I noticed that the artwork was from local artist Andy Rash. He does a number of projects for Peaceable Kingdom, in between his work with publishers. In addition to his artwork for other folks, his most recent written-and-illustrated book is Sea Monster and the Bossy Fish.

You can look at a pack of Valentines and see who might be interested from the Mom's taste as well. At least one mom I know would definitely push for the monkey valentines, for example, and another would make a beeline for the superheroes. Only one problem with the last suggestion--she has no kids.